Two statues, if no more, have been erected to him in France,—one at Lous-le-Saulnier, from the hand of Bartholdi, and another at Choisy-le-Roi.
Pils, to whom we owe the picture of Rouget de Lisle singing his immortal chant, was a French artist, who died in 1875, at the age of sixty-two, having gained many medals and a professorship of painting at the Paris School of Fine Arts. His fame was mostly won by pictures of the war in the Crimea, notably by his "Battle of the Alma," now in the gallery at Versailles. The "Rouget de Lisle," painted in 1849, belongs to the French nation. Pils decorated the ceiling over the grand staircase in the Paris Opera House.
PAGANINI.
Earth's effective picture of the great violinist in prison is an instance of the use of that license which we are generally willing to allow the painter and the poet. Among the many astounding fictions which were related about Paganini is one which asserts that, during years spent in confinement on the charge of murdering his wife, he solaced himself and perfected his art by the constant use of his beloved instrument, and this story must serve as the artist's excuse. Doubtless as many believers were found for this baseless tale as for these others.
Paganini in Prison. From painting by Ferdinand Barth.
Some declared that he had a league with Satan, and held interviews with him in an old Florentine castle, much frequented by the artist, from which, they said, fearful sounds were heard proceeding on stormy nights, and where the great master was known to have lain as one dead for hours together, on different occasions. These persons believed that at such times Paganini had only come back to life by magical agency. Another swore to having seen a tall, dark shadow bending over him at one of his concerts, and directing his hand; while a third testified that he had seen nine or ten shadowy hands hovering about the strings of the great master's violin.
Many of his admirers warmly upheld it as their opinion that he was in reality an angel sent down to this world, in pity, for the purpose of lightening the miseries of earthly life by giving man a foretaste of what the heavenly harmonies will be hereafter. They said that it was as if a choir of sweet-voiced spirits lay hid within the instrument, and that at times it seemed as though this choir turned into a grand orchestra.